


Cards, Crafts, Cooking, and Calm

by Plagg



Category: Thomas Sanders, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Gen, M/M, also expect depression talk, and plenty of crying, and some details of the two, anxiety talk, i love moxiety with all my heart, these are mostly to make me feel better bc i relate to these two far too much lol, these two need each other and i'm so weak
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-08 07:33:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14100474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plagg/pseuds/Plagg
Summary: The various ways that Patton and Virgil help each other. Through meaningful cards, sweet little crafts, or simple cooking and baking, they'll find ways to make each other smile.





	1. Flowers to Feel Better

Patton had been in his room most of the day, curled up in bed while the haze around his room engulfed him.  There were times he saw dots of sparkle fly across the room, and those made him smile, those were memories that just passed through. However, even if he smiled, he still couldn’t force himself up.  So, Patton instead just snuggled down in his covers, set his glasses on the nightstand, and pressed his back against the wall.  Maybe he could sleep off the feelings.

As he started to slip off to sleep, however, something shot under the door into the room.  Patton squinted without his glasses, scooting to the edge of his bed until he could reach his glasses and slip them on.

On the floor, in stark contrast to the bright yellow haziness of his room, laid a plum envelope.  A plum envelope…with Hello Kitty stickers?  Furrowing his brow, Patton scooted off the bed to the floor and retrieved the envelope, sitting criss-cross with a baby blanket in his lap as he looked the envelope over in his hands.  Sure enough, Hello Kitty stickers as well as tiny puppy ones dotted the front, and the back was sealed with a heart sticker.  

Patton hated to break that heart, so he carefully edged the sticker up until the top was free, and he slid out a handmade card.

The card was brown, but on the front was cutouts of light green cut to resemble flower stems, and at the tops of the stems were thumb-prints placed in spirals, all done with light blue and purple paint.  Patton thought it was quite cute, and quite pretty, to have the varying lengths of flowers, and to have the petals done in finger-prints.  And, as he opened the card, out fell a pile of paper.  Now Patton’s lap held a pile of black construction paper cut into flowers, with white and yellow paint finger prints done for the petals to make little daisies.

He couldn’t help but smile at them, and for the first time that day, he felt a bit happier.

The inside of the card had some writing, so Patton scooped up the finger-print daises in his hand and read the card, leaning back against his mattress.  “ _Flowers are supposed to help with sadness and all of that, but I know you’re allergic.  So, fake flowers?  Hope you like ‘em, Pat.  Get something to drink, get some crackers. – Virgil_ ”

Now Patton was truly smiling, and though it wasn’t ear-to-ear, it was the best he’d felt all day.  He got to his feet, stumbling a bit as his legs had fallen asleep, and went to the craft table he had in his room to retrieve a bit of tape.  Each little daisy got a piece of tape, and as he crawled back on his bed, Patton taped them all to his wall to have them close.  He held the card still, reading it back over and admiring the front before setting it on the bedside table.  His best friend always knew how to get him to smile.

…And it seemed his dry mouth and grumbling tummy wanted him to follow Virgil’s advice, so downstairs Patton went with a blanket cape and the tiniest but most sincere smile any of them had seen in a week.


	2. His Bliss Is His Star Light

Worry.  Worry, worry,  _fear_  filled Virgil.  He sat with his back pressed to his bed, knees drawn up to his chin and headphones covered by his hood as he tried to rid himself of all this  _worry_.  

No matter how close he got to the others, no matter how much progress they made, it always just seemed to come back to the same fear – what if they still hated him?  They had to be pretending, had to be just saving face by including him.  It sounded wrong.  It sounded nothing like his friends, because Virgil knew,  _he knew_ , that they loved him…but not without a shadow of a doubt.

On these days that this worry, those horrible what-ifs that just loved to talk to him, came over him, he locked the door to his room and tried to drown out all the horrible words with loud music.  The thing about loud music, however, was that it was almost always  _angry_  music, too, and Virgil knew that that wasn’t necessarily good for his anxiety.  But he didn’t care.  He didn’t care because as long as it was loud he had a very hard time thinking.

So, he sat there  _worrying_ , heart beating fast in his chest as the music tried to amp him up and get him antsy, angry, energized.  His room felt darker, and the walls seemed to be leaning down on him like an attic’s sloped ceiling.  Everything felt heavier, yet light as a feather, and Virgil tried to shake his head and come back to gravity, but nothing  _worked_ , and his breathing started to change.

Until something shot under the door.

Looking up, Virgil let his headphones fall into place around his neck, and he could feel his floor, feel his carpet.  Virgil crawled over to pick up the something, which happened to be a pale blue envelope.  A pale blue envelope with an off-white paper doily and several cute Disney stickers.  The anxious side smiled and flipped the envelope over in his hands, carefully undoing the washi tape that held the flap down. He pulled out a cute handmade card, whose front was decorated with cute construction-paper-cat-ears and whiskers made from purple and blue pipe cleaners.  Virgil felt something on the back, and when he turned it over he had to snicker at the purple felt cat tail.

He opened the card, flinching when a pile of paper fell in his lap. Picking one of the papers up, he noticed that it was a little origami star.  The star was so intricate, so  _small_ , that it captivated Virgil for a moment as he tried to figure out how in the world the star was made.

Virgil put his attention back on the card, reading the little bit of writing inside.  “ _It’s easy to_ fold _under stress and fear sometimes, but you’re quite the champ! Quite a_ star _, if I do say so myself!  I’m not_ kitten _you when I say you’re loved just for who you are, kiddo.  My door’s open, just so you know, OK? – Patton_ ”

Tears pooled in Virgil’s eyes, and he quickly wiped them away to keep all the paper dry.  Of course Patton would pack his note with as many puns as he could.  Virgil got to his feet, jamming the stars in his pocket and running them over in his hand.  He set the card on his nightstand and sat down for a moment on his bed, just smiling at it all.  The stars poked at his fingers, but it wasn’t unpleasant, and it reminded him that Patton cared.  Patton loved him enough to make a handful of small, small origami hearts and to make him such a cute card.

The tears came back, but this time Virgil let them fall onto his bare toes before getting up and heading for his door.  He unlocked it slowly and headed out down the hall toward Patton’s room.  After all, his best friend always knew how to make him smile.


	3. A Late Night Bread Baking Bash

_Knock, knock, knock_. 

“Hey, kiddo?”

Patton stood outside Virgil’s door counting the seconds, clicking his tongue to the time.  He heard shuffling inside the room, and within a few seconds, the door cracked open, so the moral side cracked a small smile.

“What’cha need, Pat?” Virgil asked, mumbling out the words as his fingers tapped incessantly on the door.

“You’ve been in there all day, sport,” Patton said, his smile falling to be replaced with concern.  “Rough day?”

Virgil pressed his lips into a line, his grip tightening on the door ‘til his knuckles were white.  “Rough day,” he repeated back with a small nod.

“Wanna talk about it?”

This time the anxious side shook his head, so Patton just gave him another small smile.  “Well, I was gonna go down to the kitchen and make some bread.  You want to help me?”

“Make bread?” Virgil questioned, eyebrows knitting together.  “Why?  It’s 9 o’clock, Pat.”  His own protective instincts started to shift into play, worry for the father figure taking over to replace his own woes.  If Patton was having a rough day, Virgil’s own feelings could wait –

“It’s alright, kiddo,” Patton said, breaking up Virgil’s thoughts.  “Bread’s no cookies, I promise.”

Virgil sighed in relief, not realizing he’d held a breath.  Patton offered once more for him to join this bread baking bash, and who was Virgil to refuse spending time with his best friend?  Patton always had a way of making him smile, always understood what he needed even when Virgil knew he was being difficult.  Maybe Patton believed this baking would help in some way?  He finally let go of the door, nodding as he reached his hand out to take Patton’s outstretched one.

Down in the kitchen, they gathered their materials.  Flour, water, yeast, and salt.  Virgil gathered up a few glass bowls and fished in the drawers for a few towels.  Patton poured out the yeast into one of the smaller glass bowls while they measured out their water and warmed it, keeping an eye on the thermometer.  “There we go, kiddo,” Patton said once the water was at the perfect temperature.  Keeping in a thermometer, they slowly added the yeast and mixed it in well.

“Isn’t it so cool, Virge?” Patton asked.

“Hm?  The…yeast?”

Patton snickered and nodded, standing to his full height as he reached for the bag of flour and measured it out.  “It’s living.  Adding it to warm water lets it thrive.  Together, they mix well and let the bread come alive, grow and rise…and we can control how much the bread grows and rises by the amount of yeast and the temperature of the water.  It’s harmonious, this process.”

Virgil didn’t say anything, watching the yeast mixture bubble and froth in its bowl while Patton mixed together the flour and salt.  He reached over eventually and took the yeast, adding it to the well he made in the flour.  Virgil turned his attention to the way everything mixed and came together, his worry lines slipping away for peace.

Patton turned the bowl over to knead the bread, but he looked to Virgil and smiled.  “Why don’t you go for it?”

“Uh, OK…” Virgil shrugged, but moved over to take Patton’s place and work the dough over and over.  Once it was ready, Patton placed a bowl by Virgil’s arm, and he plopped the dough inside while Patton covered it with a towel.  They left it alone for a while, and by 11 o’clock they returned from watching cartoons on the sofa to dump the bread out and knead out the air.  Patton helped Virgil divide the dough in half, and they plopped their shaped halves into bread tins, covering them and leaving them to rise once more.  20 minutes ‘til midnight, they put the loaves in the oven with a water bath below the rack.

“Wanna make some butter while we wait?” Patton asked, and Virgil raised a brow in confusion.  Patton giggled and reached in the fridge for a carton of cream and in a cabinet for a Mason jar.  “It’s simple, all you do is shake!”  He poured in the cream, screwed on the lid, and started shaking the jar before shaking his hips and starting to dance without so much as a single note of music.  After a minute, he past it to Virgil, who couldn’t help but grin as he shook the jar and Patton started to sing.  They switched back and forth, laughing together for no other reason than the silliness of making bread and butter and dancing like fools at midnight.

They pulled out the bread and scooped out the butter from the buttermilk, slicing the bread and coating their own cooling pieces in butter.

“So, what’cha think, kiddo?” Patton asked, blowing on his slice of bread and taking a bite.

Virgil smiled and looked over at Patton, smothering his slice in butter and jam he pulled from a cabinet.  Before he even took a bite, he laughed through his nose and said “It’s great, Pat…”

The moral side smiled bright at him, and Virgil covered his growing nerves with a bite of bread.  Before he could talk himself out of it, Virgil leaned over and kissed Patton’s cheek, leaving a jam smudge and two giggling, smiling best friends at one a.m.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quite dialogue heavy compared to the others, eh? hopefully you enjoyed it!


	4. A Little Crocheting Between You and Me

_Loop, tug, loop, tug, loop, tug, turn, dip, loop, tug, dip, loop, tug-_

Crochet was busy work, and it was busy work that Patton liked.  Different textures of yarn, using a different needle to see how much looser or tighter his stitches would be, even getting his fingers tangled up in wool yarn were all just part of the enjoyment.  It was a good distraction, and it let him see the progress he made with each and every stitch, which let him feel accomplished even on his bad days.

_Dip, loop, tug, loop, tug, turn, dip, loop, tug, dip, loop, tug-_

Roman had made him a new needle, a big wooden one that made his stitches very large and very chunky.  Of course, his first thought was to make a blanket with this new needle, as it would help make the project go quicker, and maybe the blanket wouldn’t be as _warm, unbearably warm_ if there weren’t as many stitches.  He thought to gray and a pretty pastel purple, hoping to give this blanket to Virgil.  Patton was sure he could use something so heavy to ground himself, and even if he couldn’t, it was a handmade blanket that the moral side was sure Virgil would appreciate no matter what.

_Dip, loop, tug, dip, loop, tug, dip, loop, tug, dip, loop, tug, loop, tug, turn-_

“Patton?” Virgil’s voice came from in front of him, and when Patton looked up he was met with a slightly confused look on the anxious side’s face.  “What’re you doing?” he asked, sticking his thumb nail between his teeth to gnaw on it.

“Just a little project!  Thought maybe I could make you a blankie!” Patton said cheerily.  His hands never stilled from his project, dipping the needle into an old stitch and tugging it over the hook.  He had to turn his project, and that was the only time he looked down, but his eyes went right back up to Virgil’s.

“What, is that, like, knitting?” Virgil asked through his thumb, other arm coming up to cover his midsection. 

“Not quite, kiddo,” Patton said, shaking his head.  He patted the spot on the sofa beside himself, willing Virgil to take a seat.  He did, of course, and Patton moved his project to the side to find a couple of smaller hooks and spools of cotton yarn in his bag.  “Crochet only has one needle, and it’s got a hook on it…wanna learn how to do it?”

Virgil eyed the yarn in Patton’s lap before taking a spool and a needle.  Patton showed him how to make the first loop, and they situated the yarn onto the shaft of the needle.  It was a little difficult as everything Patton did, Virgil had to do the mirror opposite, as Patton was right handed while he was a leftie.  But, before long Virgil had a chain of stitches in his hand and Patton praising him over his shoulder.

“And with a chain like that, you just turn it around and dip the hook into the second to last stitch, and pull it back up on the needle, loop the yarn like you’ve been doing, and tug the two back loops over like you’ve been doing…yup, just like that!”  Patton coached Virgil through a few more stitches, but soon the anxious side fell into the rhythm, and Patton could resume his original project.  Not ten minutes into their silence, the two were humming in time with their stitches and pushing on each other lightly to make the other giggle and miss a stitch.  And, by dinner time, Virgil had a new blanket, and Patton had a scarf.

After dinner, Virgil asked if he could take the needle Patton had leant him, as well as a little yarn.  Of course, Patton happily said yes, and with that Virgil disappeared into his room.

Virgil stayed up through the night working.  He found a pattern online that he knew Patton would love, so he curled up with his new blanket and some yarn and got to work.  By the time morning rolled around, he’d started stuffing his little project with some cotton, and by the time Patton came to get him for breakfast, he’d finally finished.

“What’cha got behind your back, kiddo?” Patton asked when Virgil came downstairs, hands held behind his back and a nervous look overshadowing his fatigue.

“Um…” Virgil ducked his head as he presented the project from behind his back.  It was a little gray crochet kitten, complete with a ball of yarn between its paws.  It was on its back, and all Virgil could focus on was the bad spot where he’d missed a couple stitches near an ear, and the bad spots where he hadn’t made his stitches tight enough.  He knew it was bad, and that Patton probably could do a lot better than this than he could ever hope to-

“Aww, that’s amazing, Virge!” Patton squealed.

The anxious side was taken aback, of course he was.  Patton had just praised his terrible attempt at a kitten…why?

“Ah, you’re a natural at this!  It took me months to even make anything besides squares; look at you go!”  Patton gave him a hug from the side, and Virgil blushed deeply at the praise.

“It’s, uh, it’s for you…” Virgil mumbled.  Patton looked just so excited, picking the kitten up to praise even more, and maybe seeing how happy it made Patton let a little bit of pride swell up in Virgil.  Just a little bit, mind you, even if the grin on his face seemed to argue otherwise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact i couldn't remember how to describe crochet so i pulled out my yarn and started chaining a little and next thing i knew half an hour had passed and i had like four rows done oops


End file.
